With the Kyoto Treaty Dead,
Environmentalists Take Incremental Approach

The Kyoto Global Warming Treaty is Dead

Negotiated by the Clinton Administration in December 1997,
the Kyoto treaty would have required the United States and other
major industrialized nations to make economically-drastic reductions
in carbon dioxide emissions to combat the alleged threat of man-made
global warming.

From November 13-24, the U.S. and most of the world's nations
met at a United Nations meeting in The Hague, Netherlands ostensibly
to finalize the details about how nations are supposed to implement
the terms of the treaty.

Instead, the delegates presided over a virtual wake.

After more than two years of fighting adamant U.S. Senate opposition
to the treaty and growing scientific skepticism about the validity
of the global warming theory, it is now clear that the Kyoto treaty
is going nowhere, domestically or internationally.

Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Climate Change,
one of the treaty's most vocal advocates, says Kyoto's unrealistic
carbon dioxide reduction targets for the U.S., a 30-40% reduction
in emissions by 2010, make it "very difficult, if not impossible"
to overcome opponents' opposition. Claussen calls for a correction
in "the flaws in the Kyoto framework." Likewise, Roger
Pielke of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research says
Kyoto will fail because of "political and technical realities."

That political reality is the unacceptable sacrifices Kyoto
would require of the American people. According to the U.S. Energy
Information Agency, the Kyoto treaty would cost the U.S. economy
$400 billion per year, raise electric utility bills by 86% and
impose a permanent "Kyoto gasoline tax" of 66 cents
per gallon. Black Americans and other minorities would pay an
especially steep price. Independent econometric studies conclude
that the treaty would result in the loss of 1.4 million jobs,
100,000 fewer businesses and a $2,500 cut in the average annual
family incomes of black and Hispanic families.

As if the shocking economic costs were not enough of an argument
against the Kyoto treaty, the mounting scientific evidence questioning
the impact of human behavior on climate change has increasingly
robbed global warming theorists of their veneer of scientific
credibility. Pielke admitted as much when he said, "Each
new scientific finding only raises new questions" about the
truth of the global warming theory and that climate science, instead
of being a pillar for theory advocates, can "turn around
and bite you."

Probably the biggest bite climate science has taken out of
the global warming theory is that NASA weather satellites, the
most accurate measurement of global temperature, indicate that
the Earth stopped warming more than 20 years ago. This contradicts
the prediction of global warming theory proponents that global
warming would cause the temperature to increase by 0.6°F between
1979 and 2000.6 Casting further doubt on the prognostications
of global warming theorists is that satellite data show that,
during 1999 and 2000, the lower atmosphere over the tropics was
cooler than at any other time in the past 22 years. Noted climate
scientist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville
says, "This is curious. According to the climate models used
to calculate the enhanced greenhouse effect, the warming should
have been particularly rapid in the air over the tropics."

But it turns out that whatever global warming or cooling may
occur, Man is not to blame. Many scientists believe that the main
factor influencing changes in the Earth's temperature is the Sun.
Several European and American scientists say that data from the
European Space Agency's Soho satellite and other astronomical
data show that the Sun, not Man's burning of fossil fuels, is
the main cause of the global warming that occurred between 1850
and the mid-20th century. Scientists specializing in solar research
say earlier computer models that were used to make dramatic claims
about theorized human-induced warming severely underestimated
the increase in the amount of energy radiated by the Sun over
the last 150 years. They conclude that it is pointless to impose
taxes on fuels in an attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Paul Brekke, Soho's deputy project scientist, says that whatever
other merits there may be in taxing fuel, "our evidence suggests
it will not be much help in keeping the Earth cool."

It is also not apparent that rising carbon dioxide levels necessarily
cause the temperature to increase. An article that appeared this
year in the science magazine Nature shows that, in numerous instances
throughout Earth's geological history, increases and decreases
in carbon dioxide were not followed by respective increases or
decreases in global temperature. For example, 60 million years
ago, the atmosphere had a carbon dioxide concentration of 3600
parts per million (ppm), far more than today's ratio of about
360 ppm. Thirteen million years later, the carbon dioxide concentration
dramatically fell to 500 ppm. But instead of causing global cooling,
the reduced carbon dioxide concentration coincided with a temperature
increase. Several million years later, the carbon dioxide level
jumped all the way up to 2400 ppm. And the temperature? There
was a slight decrease in global temperature, contradicting the
assumption that rising carbon dioxide levels automatically trigger
global warming.

It's no wonder that even environmentalists are accepting the
fact that the Kyoto treaty is a dead letter. The staggering economic
sacrifices are simply not justified by the growing scientific
skepticism that human activities are causing the planet to warm
and about carbon dioxide's role in climate change. For environmentalists,
The Hague meeting is a bitter dose of reality.

by John Carlisle

With the Kyoto Treaty Dead, Environmentalists
Take Incremental Approach

For the moment, Americans can breathe a sigh of relief that
the Kyoto global warming treaty will not turn their standard of
living upside down - but only for a moment.

Negotiated by the Clinton Administration in December 1997,
Kyoto would have required the United States and other industrialized
nations to make economically-drastic reductions in carbon dioxide
emissions to combat the alleged threat of man-made global warming.

But the U.S. and more than 170 nations, convening at a United
Nations meeting in The Hague, Netherlands in November, were unable
to agree on terms implementing the treaty. The main disagreement
centered on a bitter dispute between the U.S. and the European
Union on whether the U.S. could count its forests toward meeting
its greenhouse gas reduction targets. U.S. negotiators desperately
pressed for more economically-friendly ways to meet Kyoto's onerous
goals. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, Kyoto
would cost the U.S. economy $400 billion per year, raise electric
utility bills by 80 to 85% and impose a permanent "Kyoto
gasoline tax" of 45 to 55 cents per gallon.

Because forests absorb significant amounts of carbon dioxide,
American negotiators wanted to count its forests and other "carbon
sinks" toward its emissions reductions targets. By counting
the carbon dioxide absorbed by forests, the U.S. would not have
had to rely as much on onerous - and politically unacceptable
- carbon taxes and regulations to meet Kyoto's emissions reductions
targets. However, European nations objected that the U.S. was
trying to dodge its treaty obligations and rejected a last minute
compromise that would have allowed the U.S. to include forests.

Commenting on the European refusal to compromise on the "carbon
sinks," Frank Loy, the chief U.S. negotiator at The Hague
said, "I think it is fair to say that was a pretty important
opportunity that was not cashed in on."

The question now is, what next? Even before The Hague debacle,
environmentalists knew that the global warming battle was shifting
from the international arena to the domestic arena. At a Washington,
D.C. conference in April, representatives of major environmental
groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental
Defense, agreed that while Kyoto is politically unrealistic, incremental
policies aimed at regulating carbon dioxide emissions are achievable.
That view was echoed by congressional staff members present at
The Hague conference. Said one senate staffer, "Regardless
of the outcome here, the stage is set in Congress next year to
consider addressing this issue in a way that makes economic and
environmental sense."

Indeed, environmentalists are already gearing up their lobbying
campaign. The Aspen Institute recently published a book, U.S.
Policy and the Global Environment: Memos to the President,
that will be sent to the new Congress and President. The thrust
of the book's essays is that while it is impossible to ratify
Kyoto, the U.S. can still take unilateral steps that would eventually
bind the U.S. to the treaty in five to ten years. One contributor,
John Holdren, says that instead of pressing for carbon taxes of
$100 or $200 per ton as required by Kyoto, Congress could implement
a less ambitious plan that would get "our toes wet with a
tax of $20 per ton." What that translates into is soaking
the American people with a $30 billion tax increase.

It never occurs to environmentalists that these costly carbon
taxes purport to address a problem that may not exist. Many scientists,
including some of those who subscribe to the global warming theory,
do not believe that rising carbon dioxide levels are contributing
to global warming. Dr. James Hansen, the godfather of the global
warming theorists, says that "it is the non-CO2 [Greenhouse
Gases] that have caused most observed warming." Other scientists
do not even believe humans are responsible for global warming.
Several European and American scientists say that data from the
European Space Agency's (ESA) Soho satellite show that the Sun,
not human burning of fossil fuels, is the main cause of the global
warming that occurred between 1850 and the mid-20th century. Paul
Brekke, Soho's deputy project scientist, says that whatever other
merits there may be in taxing fuel, "our evidence suggests
it will not be much help in keeping the Earth cool."

But environmentalists ignore these facts in their single-minded
rush to foist costly taxes on the American people. The Kyoto global
warming treaty may be a dead letter but its spirit is still very
much alive.

by John Carlisle

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